Digestive diseases that affect the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and the liver have a major impact on the health of American people. They range from bothersome symptoms that result in primary care visits and outpatient GI consults to severe life threatening illnesses that require hospitalizations and costly medications or procedures. Scientific progress in the recent decades has shed much light on the pathobiology of various digestive diseases, which has led to novel means to prevention and intervention that have saved lives and improved quality of life of our patients. However, the burden of digestive diseases remains high, with incidence and mortality associated with some of the disorders actually increasing. There remains a large need for scholarly physicians to discover novel ways to prevent, diagnose and treat patients with digestive diseases. The singular mission of the Stanford University T32 Training Program in Gastroenterology is to recruit the most talented young physician scientists in basic, translational, clinical and population-based research and develop them into leaders of future academic gastroenterologists. Led by three co-program directors, the Training Program has a functioning governing structure consisting of Oversight, Selection, Mentorship and Evaluation Committees. Additional support is obtained from an Administrative Subcommittee and Advisory Council. The Program includes 38 faculty, consisting of members of the adult and pediatric GI Divisions and other scitentists who have strong track record of mentoring trainees in GI. The mentors cover a wide range of expertise including (1) basic biology of enteric and hepatic viruses and the development of novel therapeutic strategies; (2) host-microbiome interactions; (3) signal transduction in cancer biology; (4) mucosal immunology and the immunology of digestive diseases; (5) stem cell biology, (6) bioengineering and medical device development; (7) population science and epidemiology; and (8) health services and clinical outcomes research. Trainees spend two years working in a laboratory or in translational/patient-oriented research. For trainees in the latter category, a Master's degree program in epidemiology, health policy/services research or biomedical informatics is offered and financially supported. The Training Program is structured to optimize its operations in (1) selecting the best candidates, (2) identifying, selecting, and facilitating mentors to create the most productive research training experience, (3) monitoring trainees' progress and providing necessary support, and (4) critically evaluating the Program for continuous improvement. The trainees are largely drawn from fellows in the adult and pediatric clinical gastroenterology training programs who have already demonstrated a commitment toward pursuing an academic investigative career. Many of the trainees were selected through the Stanford Translational Investigator Program that identifies medicine residency applicants, highly motivated for an investigative career, wish to commit their fellowship training in digestive diseases. The program is enriched by Stanford's strong academic environment and commitment to training physician- scientist leaders of the future. This is exemplified by resources ranging from infrastructure, personnel, and financial support from the adult and pediatric GI Divisions to a diverse array of institutional programs promoting research and research education across campus. Thanks to these, for the past 41 years, the Training Program has been able to achieve its goal of providing the most promising candidates an opportunity to realize their career objectives in discovering new knowledge in digestive diseases and translating the information to reduce their burden in patients and community. Essentially all (89%) of our graduates are in an investigative career, a vast majority of them in academic institutions (73%). We propose to continue the strong tradition of physician-scientist training at Stanford University School of Medicine and seek to enhance it to best prepare our trainees for the future of digestive medicine.